windjamm | A Series of Unfortunate Events Review (Reply)

Over the Year of Our Devil 2023 I read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a book series cherished by people I love.

I immediately understood a few things, but it's only looking at the series wholecloth that I feel like I have a proper portrait. This is a remarkable feat, in truth; the whole series works in chain, not just as a linked narrative, but a linked understanding of the Baudelaire children and their development over time with each other's influence as well as those of the external factors (read: dangers) to which they're constantly exposed.

I'm going to be spoiling the whole series, so if you haven't read them I would suggest going to do so; they're very quick reads if you have a library card and want to listen to them at 2.0x speed, another suggestion of mine.

The series opened with the recently orphaned siblings staring out at the sea. Each of them have different talents, though these would be drawn out of them as time went on. They're utterly lost and immediately thrust into the care of adults who have very little business rearing children. There is Mr. Poe, who is the caretaker of the late Baudelaires' fortune. He exists without any clues whatsoever about raising children and few clues about how to exist in a world that operates beyond anything but common sense. And we have Count Olaf, who will be the boogeyman and villain of the series as he not only strives to claim the Baudelaire fortune for himself, but also indulge in cartoonish matters of villainy and treachery.

The loop of the books is this: The Children are thrust into the care of an adult who, for reasons of their own making or through external limitations cannot give them what they need. The Children are endangered by yet another scheme devised by Count Olaf and then must save themselves from treachery, only to be removed from the situation and thrust into another adult's care.

This continues for over half the series until the Baudelaires begin to fend for themselves.

All the while, the three of them have very few constants in the world. They are forced into a strange house by the law, their routines are disrupted, they hope and hope but in the end can only find foundation and solace in one another.

We watch as they grow in their strengths. Violet's inventions gaining a confidence and self-assurance that they can stand against any foe's machinations or even nature itself. Klaus gains a sense of understanding not just of the world, but of the knowledge one can gain about it and then wield. Sunny gains the end of her babyhood and the ability to do things for herself, to cook, to look after herself and find independence. We watch as the siblings take interests and turn them into strengths, not just reveling but excelling at their eccentricities, making strength of their strangness and holding it out in front of them as truth against all things.

At first I had though this was an aside, a tangential theme that Lemony Snicket intended but perhaps would not linger upon. But as we grew to understand more about the iconic, ever-present acronym VFD I realized that it wasn't just a joke. The fact that VFD stood for so many things was in fact the point.

Paraphrased: It started as the volunteer fire department, but we were interested in so many things.

These people all came together to do good in the world, joined by their collective desire. And then each of them found things to live, found special interests to explore and obsess over. And so we get the Verdant Flammable Device, the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, the Volunteer Factual Dispatches, the Volatile Fungus Deportation, the Verse Fluctuation Declaration, the Volunteer Fish Domestication, etc, etc. Each of them imbued with so much love, so much passionate pursuit that the acronym becomes a banner.

And just like the fractal nature of the VFD acronym, the siblings and their interests gain their strength through the pursuit of their personhoods and it is a marvel to watch.

As the series neared the end, as we reintroduced characters it became clear that this was never going to be a series where the Baudelaires were saved. It was always going to be a story of them learning to save themselves and learning that that was what adulthood was all along. If only they had people to look after them until they could figure it out safely. If only they weren't beset on all sides by heartache and loss. If only they could count on people for more than a hundred pages. And yet.

And yet as the story drew to a close and we realize just how fallible all the figures of the past were, how ultimately important the small, mundane minutiea is and how utterly it cannot save them either, it became clear that there would be no grand revelation, no great, blaring trumpet. Only the quiet assurance that they would do their best.

"The amount of treachery in this world is enormous and the best thing we could do is one small, noble thing."

We watch as their great boogeyman dies without fanfare. We watch as the Baudelaires gather a newborn baby into their midst and promise to raise it. And we recognize that though they will probably never be cared for as they deserve except in their small, tight unit, this baby will have the best family it could ask for.

What a remarkable look at lives lived in horrible tragedy.